You have the date, the lineup and the room. Now you need the image that will sit in stories, group chats and your event page for the next month. Most people will see it for about two seconds, on a phone, between a friend’s dog and a meme.

Your flyer needs to get the right person to tap through to the event page. The full lineup notes, the door policy and the refund policy can live on that page. The flyer only has to make someone want to know more and tell them where to look.

Put these on it

Someone who sees only the flyer should be able to answer “what, when, where and is it for me”:

• The event name, big enough to read at thumbnail size
• The day and date together, like “Sat, Nov. 14,” so nobody has to check a calendar
• Door time
• The neighborhood or venue, whichever you are ready to announce
• The lineup, with the name your crowd knows best set largest
• The age limit, if there is one
• Where to get tickets, in a few words, like “Tickets on Beatmatch”

If your crowd follows a theme or a genre, one line that says it (“disco and house all night,” “costumes encouraged”) does more than a paragraph.

Leave these off

Everything you add makes the important parts smaller. Some details also go stale fast:

• Ticket prices. Your early bird ends, and a flyer with the old price keeps circulating for weeks. Put the price in the caption, not on the image, and keep the full prices on the event page, where they update.
• Exact set times. They change. Post them separately once they are final.
• A private address. For a house or a loft, put the neighborhood on the flyer and send the full address to ticket holders before the event. Check what your event page’s Location shows first: it may show the full address, so don’t count on keeping it private there.
• Long text. If it takes more than a glance to read, people skip it.
• A wall of partner logos. If a partner needs credit, one line at the bottom or a mention in the caption usually works.

Design it for a phone first

Most people will see your flyer on a phone screen, so design at that size and check it there.

• Make two sizes. A portrait version (4:5) for feed posts and a tall version (9:16) for stories. On the tall one, keep the name, date and doors away from the top and bottom edges, where app buttons and profile names sit.
• Test it small. Shrink the flyer to the size of a thumbnail on your own phone. If you can’t read the date, make it bigger.
• Keep contrast high. White text on a busy photo disappears. Darken the photo behind the text or use a solid block of color.
• Use one or two fonts. One for the event name and one for everything else.
• Use your own photos if you have them. A photo from your last event shows the real room and crowd. Ask the people in it before you use it.

Make a version for each stage of sales

One flyer posted five times gets ignored. A few versions built on the same design give you a reason to post again, and people still recognize the event:

For what to post in each week, see How to Sell Tickets to a Party in Los Angeles.

Put it everywhere your buyers already look

• Your event page. On Beatmatch you can upload event flyers, promo graphics and photos from past events to the event page, so the page matches what people saw in their feeds.
• Your performers and co-hosts. Send each of them both sizes the day you announce, so they can post the full-quality flyer in their own feeds and stories.
• Your ticket holders. A text blast can include a photo or flyer, which makes the day-of version a good reminder for people who already bought.

Once someone taps through, the event page closes the sale, so make sure the description answers the questions the flyer raises. How to Write an Event Description That Sells Tickets has a template.

Add your flyer to your event

When you create your event on Beatmatch, upload your flyer with the event details and set your ticket options, so the prices you left off the flyer are right there on the page. Step-by-step: Create Ticket Options.